Baker Mayfield had final say over what made it into the Quarterback series
· Yahoo Sports
If we've learned nothing about sports documentaries in recent years, it's that the subjects of the documentaries often have the ability to keep some of the facts that have been documented from being included in the finished product.
And so it should surprise no one that Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield had the ability to pull the plug on anything that the producers of the Quarterback series proposed for inclusion into the final cut.
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The topic came up during Mayfield's Thursday press conference, the one that focused primarily on his contract situation with the team.
"To be honest with you, I didn't watch the full series," Mayfield said. "They sent all the clips of us in it, just so I could give the final OK. Apologies to the families of little kiddos because the language on there is actually not very suited for them. It's — might be a little angry elf on the field every once in a while. So that's probably the part that I do regret a little bit, but that's the fire on the field, unfortunately, that comes out on TV.
"But, yeah, I wanted to portray that I'm all ball. It's — you can say what you want in the media. You can say I'm cocky and whatever, but it's all ball. I love my teammates, I love this game, and I love playing it."
Mayfield added that "there's a few things" he exercised his prerogative to remove from the show.
It's the key caveat to keep in mind as to any of these shows. Even though we're ostensibly getting access to key behind-the-scenes moments, we still only get to see and hear the things the subject of the production wants us to see and hear.
And it's surely fair to assume the other quarterbacks who have submitted to the series have had that same power. Approval of the final cut became part of the deal from the early days of Hard Knocks. In 2010, when the question of final say had become a talking point, former Ravens coach Brian Billick confirmed that his team had the ability to remove content during the very first year of the show, in 2001.
While it's better than the alternative of having nothing at all, the power of the teams in Hard Knocks or the players in Quarterback to say "strike that from the tape" should always be remembered.
Especially when things slip through that probably should have been scrubbed, like the time Hue Jackson clumsily asserted in a meeting with his staff that "I get to drive this bus" and pretty much all of the Giants' run on the one-and-done offseason version of Hard Knocks.